Slicing the meaningful use pie

One of the tenets of meaningful use (MU), as defined in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), is that providers must use health IT to exchange clinical health information. While a final version of MU will not be adopted until next year, the clinical data exchange requirement will stand as it is part of the ARRA mandate. Healthcare organizations consequently must figure out how to meet an undefined component of meaningful use while at the same time addressing their current connectivity and data exchange needs.One way to approach this complex state of affairs to consider four slices - labeled local, regional, state and national - of a greater health information exchange pie.